Archery equipment has long been used for hunting wild game for food, as well as recreation. The original style long bow, or recurve bow, consists of specially fabricated, long, narrow, typically wood body that has a central handle for gripping and opposing ends of the limbs that extend away from the central handle, connected at the ends by a taught string. The string create a force to be built and stored in the limbs. When an archer places an arrow in the center of the string and pulls back on the string and arrow, this force of energy is increased relative to the distance pulled. When the archer releases the arrow, the stored energy is released as the limbs return to their original position and propel the arrow forward. While this was an effective way to hunt for centuries, it took a great deal of time to learn the art and become proficient and accurate. A regular type bow was also limited in effective range by the strength of the archer.
Later, the weapon to end all wars was created: the crossbow. The crossbow essentially took the design of a regular bow and mounted it horizontally and perpendicular to a rail and stock which held a trigger mechanism, or string release. The crossbow allowed the archer to pull back the string and load the projectile, called a bolt, and remain in a “ready to fire” position until the appropriate time. This weapon, though easier to learn how to shoot, had many drawbacks. Due to size limitations, the limbs on a crossbow were much shorter than those of a regular bow. Because of the shorter limbs, they had to be much stiffer, and they required much more strength to pull back to get the same speed of the bolt as their regular bow counterparts. This increased force also generated much more noise. Another drawback was the fact that they also had a much shorter power stroke, or the distance the string is engaged to the bolt while releasing the stored energy of the limbs.
In modern day archery, there are two types of crossbows, compound and recurve. The recurve type is modeled after the centuries old recurve bow mounted horizontally. The compound crossbow is modeled after the compound bow, having cams on the ends of the limbs to help generate force. Both of these styles of crossbows typically require 150# to 225# drawing force to pull back the string, and are extremely loud for archery hunting equipment. In all prior art, including U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,108 McPherson, U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,528 Gallops, Jr., high noise levels and extreme draw forces are still a great issue. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,596 Bednar tried to address noise levels by creating a damping system to mount the limbs, but with little effect.
Though many people believe that crossbows are more lethal than conventional bows, this is not the case. Because of the extreme noise level created when the crossbow is fired, and the fact that an bolt is flying much slower than the speed of sound, the noise is heard by the game animal before the bolt reaches it, giving the animal time to react. Thus the louder the weapon, the less effective range it has. To try to compensate for this fact, manufacturers are left to try and increase speed by increasing the poundage force, all the while increasing the noise level.
As with conventional bows and crossbows, the string is pulled away from the generally concave area between the limbs, away from the riser and limbs. Because of these design mechanics, bows and crossbows are limited in stoke length due to usable size restrictions. It would be very easy produce a crossbow that had a much longer power stroke, but it would not be usable in the hunting world because of it being so massive. The invention disclosed in this filing answers all of the above described inherent problems of prior art crossbows and bows. One must first understand the basic and general rules of physics related to bows and arrows: For any given bow of any poundage rating, if the arrow weight is the same on all tests, the greater the length of the power stroke, the faster the arrow will fly. To compensate for a shorter power stroke, the poundage rating must be increased to offset this decrease.